Leg 2: Cape Flattery to San Francisco

Seven hundred miles. Eight days offshore. This was the passage that proved the boat — and proved us.

We ran the Oregon coast in a mix of conditions: NW swell 8–12 ft in the first days as the Pacific reminded us who was in charge, easing to 4–6 ft as we dropped south and got out from under the Columbia River outflow. The California current pushed us south at half a knot. Log entries from that week read like a metronome: reef in, reef out, watch change, coffee, stars.

Cape Mendocino was the pivot point. The NW wind that had pushed us down the Oregon coast went light and fluky as we rounded into the California bight. Point Arena materialized out of the fogbank at dusk on August 29th. We gybed east at first light the next morning and picked up the Gate traffic separation scheme, the towers coming in and out of cloud until we were close enough to see the rust.

San Francisco Bay was glassy on arrival. We dropped the hook in Richardson Bay and didn't move for three days.

Peak run: 115 nm in 24 hours offshore Washington · Max gust: 28 kts off Oregon

Distance: ~700 nm · Time underway: 8 days